Jailbreak my iPad? Is Apple forcing me to do it?

I had never had any intention of 'jailbreaking' my iPad. Jailbreaking ia a way of removing all kinds of built-in security restrictions. It's not recommended by Apple. In fact, I had assumed it was something only done by reckless users with nefarious intent. So there was simply no way I would even consider jailbreaking my iPad!

But with the latest update to iOS, Apple has forced me to rethink that resolve. Why? Because silently, without prior warning, the latest update to the iOS operating system (8.3) has screwed up my ability to find and transfer my data files from my iPad to my PC. Apple wants to force me to use its hideous iTunes or store my data files somewhere halfway across the world on an unknown storage device which I imagine to lurk malignly in a concrete warehouse which goes by the deceptively friendly-sounding name of 'The Cloud'. Thanks, but no thanks. I have written some Word documents on my iPad. I now want to browse for them using a File Manager and transfer them to my PC. Should be simple, huh? Up to now I've been able to do this perfectly easily using the free iBrowse utility. But when I launched iBrowse today it showed empty folders on my iPad with no sign of the documents they contained.

iBrowse pops up this error. They say an update will resolve the issue. I can only hope they are right...

It turns out that iBrowse is not the only file management tool that's been screwed over by iOS 8.3. Other people have reported the same problems with other file browsers. Apple has deliberately (it seems to me, maliciously) prevented access to files using third-party tools. What? They are my blasted files, for Heaven's sake. I created them myself and I expect to be able to do with them exactly what I damn' well want to!

But there is a way around this. It's called jailbreaking. It's something I really didn't want to do. But Apple may be forcing me to consider doing it anyway. Why the heck would Apple go out of its way to encourage iOS users to jailbreak their pads and phones? Because, as far as I can see, that is exactly what this update does. All I can say is that Apple moves in mysterious ways...